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- šæ $17/hr, no car, no plan. What would you do?
šæ $17/hr, no car, no plan. What would you do?
Heās got a degree, no connections, and canāt land anything better than $17/hr jobs...
CareerSnacks Team
July 29, 2025
Inside todayās snack: A business grad gets fired, stuck at $17/hr, and wonders if college was a scam. Todayās Snack Drop leads to roles in ops, HR, and support. Pays up to $60K with no fancy background needed.
š Snack Drop is UNCOMMON.
šļø Pickle Draw odds: 1 in 16 (6.25%).
š„ Todayās pickle
Iām a 27-year-old with an online Bachelorās in Business Administration from Southern New Hampshire University. I graduated last October, and the job market is so brutal that I can only get the most low-status, low-paying jobs. I just got fired (willingly, to be honest) from a staffing agency that did direct care work for group homes and disadvantaged individuals. I made $17 an hour and Iāve had it with that line of work.
I thought college would prevent me from ever working these menial, dead-end jobs. I hate that my choices now are either working with 15 or 16-year-olds at McDonaldās or doing depressing, low-wage group home work. My job history is sparse because I focused on school. I worked at Target for a few months in 2017, did four weeks at a medical billing firm in 2022, and did door-to-door sales in summer 2023. None of those were meant to be real jobs. I donāt have professional references or any kind of network.
I donāt know what I want besides a job that pays decently. I donāt have specific career motivations. I donāt have marketable skills. I went to college to escape low-wage labor, but now it feels like Iām stuck in it for good. I did what society told me to do. Now I live in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S., and I canāt even afford rent or a car. What should I do?
š³ļø Chip In
š„ PICKLE #26: What do you think anon should do? |
What would a career coach say? š§ Hereās the cheese:
You donāt need passion to start, just direction.
Pick one boring but stable path with decent entry-level pay (for example claims processor, HR assistant, admin coordinator, operations support).
You can figure out what you actually like after you get hired and start earning.
Get into an entry-level office job any way you can.
Use sites like HiringCafe to find roles that donāt require experience.
Apply to 3-5 jobs a day for 30 days. Keep your resume simple, clear, and focused on tools and tasks, even from retail work.
Take a crash course in one skill that pays.
Learn basic Excel, CRM, or Notion. They show up in tons of job listings and are easy to self-teach.
Use Coursera or edX to take one free course and add it to your resume right away.
Forget the network. Start cold messaging instead.
DM 5 people a week who work in jobs youād actually take. Be short, respectful, and ask one question.
One person replying can matter more than 100 job apps.
Move fast, not perfectly.
You donāt need a perfect plan. You just need to make your next paycheck easier to earn.
Apply now. Skill up in the background. Figure the rest out once youāre out of survival mode.
TL;DR: You donāt need to find your purpose right now. You need a job that pays and buys you space to think. Start there.
š Snack Drop UNCOMMON
Snack Drop is your career blind box
š Youāre only getting part of the snack.
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